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Steven Baker

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Steven is a commercial lawyer who has a broad practice in international and domestic dispute resolution. He helps clients in English higher court proceedings and overseas.

Steven also has a large international arbitration practice with experience of a wide range of arbitral institutions, including HKIAC, ICC, LCIA, LMAA, UNCITRAL and SIAC.

Steven is ranked in the leading legal directories for commercial dispute resolution and banking litigation. He has been described in the directories as “a tremendous litigator – he is very clever and efficient and handles multiple clients well”, “very thoughtful, very into the detail, but equally takes a very commercial stance” and “very good at running complex commercial disputes, very bright and a pleasure to deal with”.

Over the past 30 years, Steven has been heavily involved in advising upon and resolving disputes in the technology, communications, defence, financial services and energy sectors.

Steven is also the co-author of a leading text on technology and outsourcing disputes (a 2nd edition now having been commissioned and due to be published in July 2023): IT Contracts and Dispute Management: A Practitioner's Guide to the Project Lifecycle, published in March 2018 (Edward Elgar Publishing, ISBN: 9781784710118).

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In the first two instalments of our series we examined the progress of English law to provide a secure and certain legal infrastructure for cryptoasset investment and management. In particular, we looked at how recent English case law has addressed the following questions:

(1) Are cryptoassets property and (2) Can…

In the first part of this series of articles, we examined the progress of English law to shape and build an infrastructure to support the development of a secure and certain environment for investment in digital assets. We considered how recent English case law has addressed the questions of whether…

Sir Geoffrey Vos, the Master of the Rolls, wants English law to be at the forefront of developments relating to cryptoassets and smart contracts. In his thought-provoking foreword to the government-backed UK Jurisdictional Taskforce’s (UKJT) Legal Statement on Cryptoassets and Smart Contracts, he explained that English law should aim…

In the recent case of Kyla Shipping Co Ltd v Freight Trading Ltd [2022] EWHC 376 (Comm) the English Commercial Court rejected a claim to litigation privilege over preliminary investigations conducted by a party appointed expert on the basis that litigation in respect of the matter being investigated was not in reasonable prospect at the relevant time. However, the court also held that there was no waiver (or a wider collateral waiver) of privilege in respect of documents relating to how the mispricing claim was discovered (including the expert’s investigations) by the claimant’s solicitor having referred to them in a witness statement.

Litigation privilege applies to confidential documents or communications where at the time the communication or document was created litigation was in reasonable prospect; and it was created for the dominant purpose of the litigation.

In the recent and significant Warren v DSG Retail Ltd [2021] EWHC 2168 (QB) decision the High Court in England clarified the limited circumstances in which claims for breach of confidence, misuse of private information and the tort of negligence might be advanced by individuals for compensation for distress relating…